For my own curiosity, I wondered if we could take a poll to see the experience of posters on this board. More specifically, I was interested in knowing who, if anyone, actually plays blackjack for a living and on down the scale to the infrequent player such as myself.

Obviously this is all self-reporting and prone to errors, but if anyone's game I'd like to get an idea of sorts. After a bit, I'll add up all the numbers and give the results (if anyone responds).

So with that in mind, please reply one of the following numbers:6 - Earn 100% of my salary from BJ5 - Earn 100% of my salary from BJ and other means of gambling (stock market does not count)4 - Supplement my income with significant blackjack winnings (>25% of my income)3 - Regular player (approximately once a week)2 - Casual player (at least once a month)1 - Vacation player (when I can)

I dunno... lets say a 3.5 ... <10% and I was weekly... now monthly, but I started as a 1, then a 2 then a 3, and really the 4 part never came into play because I set my limits knowing A5 was/is nowhere near as good as hi/lo. But thats not to say I had a bad stretch, either. Sheeez it can get painful. But for a few years (3) I wound up being a 4 but for the rest of it, a rather good experience.

.....and the <1.0 for Stainless Steel Rat (lol)..........Good Poll, FunkyFowl,...Congrats on the idea.<br />and most importantly.........MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL!!

Since I am not a psychiatrist, I won't venture to guess what your problem is. But I've been a 2 for at least 5 years, although that dropped off a bit this last year since the MS coast has not been really worth the drive. I have generally played once or twice a month regularly in MS / LA, and then we usually spend a week+ in Vegas each Summer. I've never claimed to be a pro. I have claimed to be able to play the game well. Those that know me know that's simply a statement of fact.

But, whatever floats your boat, carry on with the nonsense... if that's the way you prefer to stay occupied...

I think my numbers may be flawed a bit, but let's say twice a week is a 3.5. The idea really is to see how many 4+'s we have, and I see we have a lot of people that play regularly, but don't consider it as supplementing their income.

Unfortunately no. 1 does not mean you are a novice to the game. Note that Fred did not rate himself the max, although if it were a skill rating, he would obviously be rated that. I play 100% BS and consider myself somewhere between novice and intermediate with card counting, and rated myself a 1 as well.

Guess I was a 4 once but my income from other sources has risen so blackjack is no longer even close to 25%,

but my blackjack income has risen also but just at a much slower pace but by design. I have not increased my bet level in perhaps 7 years and instead of increasing my blackjack bankroll have taken wins and invested them in other areas.Blackjack books, being blackjack books, do not talk about doing this but a constantly rising bet level takes you eventually to a point where the number of games you can play for any amount of time seriously shrinks. So if you enjoy the game, want to keep many a house open to you and have reasons for not wanting constant travel, you reach a point where increasing your bet (in effect increasing your blackjack income) might be counter productive to your goal if you can not get the time in.

for 06' i would be considered a 4. not bad for my first year counting. i hope to duplicate it again this year, but family life and me burning out most my 'home games will make that difficult. good poll.

To remind everyone, the possible responses were:6 - Earn 100% of my salary from BJ5 - Earn 100% of my salary from BJ and other means of gambling (stock market does not count)4 - Supplement my income with significant blackjack winnings (>25% of my income)3 - Regular player (approximately once a week)2 - Casual player (at least once a month)1 - Vacation player (when I can)

No one earns 100% of their salary from blackjack, but we did have quite a few that at least supplement their salaries from blackjack to a considerable degree. A lot of people answered with decimal points. In those cases, I merely rounded the number to the nearest whole number for purposes of counting the responses (but not for counting the average).

1 person is a professionl gambler -- earning 100% of their salary from blackjack and from other casino games. Of course, we don't know whether the person actually makes money or not, but the person tries at least. Another 8 people (again, rounded to the nearest whole number), consider blackjack to make up at least 25% of their salaries. That means 50% of those that answered the survey earn at lest 25% of their salary from BJ. Not a bad figure. I will probably safely assume that if there were errors in reporting that people erred on overstating their blackjack dependence, but even assuming this number is a little lower, its still fairly large (and more than I expected).

Another 5 people play at least once a week. Thus, a whopping 78% of people that responded to the survey are at the once a week level or above.

The remainder of people play once a month or less.

The average response for the survey was a 3.028 -- pretty close to a 3 (of playing once a week or more).

In all, it seems we have a fairly professional board, but with enough diversity to keep things interesting.